


Out of Time

by Canadiantardis



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Basically everyone who came through the portal is there, Blood and Injury, By literal seconds, Character Death, Gen, One Shot, Some speak and some don't, They/Them Pronouns for Eret (Video Blogging RPF), Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28936707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canadiantardis/pseuds/Canadiantardis
Summary: Tommy stumbled over his words, tears spilling down his face as he struggled to speak, until - “What am I without you?”Tubbo took a breath, eyes wide at him, and for a brief, brief moment, he found himself standing at the top of a small smoking crater, a huge tower to the sky over what used to be called Logstedshire. He blinked once, and loosened Tommy’s grip on his arms, pulling away but taking his hands in his own. “Yourself?”
Relationships: Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 28
Kudos: 247





	Out of Time

**Author's Note:**

> On the one hand, I was beyond relieved that there were no actual deaths in the finale. On the other, I demand angst and blood and c!Tubbo is both my comfort character and my angst character. So this fic was born  
> Most things are the same, and I did watch over and over the vods to get some of the quotes right, but still changed things up.

Tubbo was never one to shy away from physical affection, but the grip Tommy had on his arms, holding him like it was  _ his  _ life on the line, was almost too much for him.

“Why are you just accepting it now? Don’t just accept it now,” Tommy sounded like he was in pain, his face screwed up and pinched. “Don’t just  _ accept  _ it.”

“We literally have no way out, Tommy,” Tubbo carefully twisted his arms to grab Tommy’s arms in return, shaking them slightly. It wasn’t that he accepted it, not totally, he really hoped there was a way out, but there was only bedrock under, a portal that would take much too long to get through, no way up, and no way to break the black bricks that surrounded them in the vault.

He couldn’t understand how this happened. They thought they had had a disc, something Tommy had almost gone mad over getting back, but when Dream threatened Tubbo’s life… Tommy chose  _ him. _ He couldn’t understand.  ~~ Maybe he refused to believe the truth. ~~

Still, Tommy fought, the two speaking over one another. “We, we don’t  _ accept it. _ We don’t accept this shit, man-” “We’d never make it to the portal in time-” “We’d never-” “We don’t have pickaxes…

“There’s no way out,” Tubbo turned to face his best friend again, silently pleading for him to accept it, that Tubbo was not about to leave this vault alive and just wanted him to know everything would be okay, eventually. “It’s fine, though, we had some lau-” His eyes trailed to the side at movement, only to feel his heart sink lower to the floor as he saw the elevator make its way back up. “Oh, well, there goes our lift out.”

He returned his attention to Tommy, feeling like he was trying to memorize his expression, even though it caused his heart pain. He looked distraught and angry and helpless. “That was our only other option,” he sighed, steeling himself as he felt the window drawing close coming soon. “It’s over.” He smiled as the back of his eyes burned. “We had some laughs, and it was fun, y’know. But… All good things must come to an end eventually.”

He glanced over Tommy’s shoulder to the masked man, who took lazy steps forward, axe in hand.

Tommy stumbled over his words, tears spilling down his face as he struggled to speak, until - “What am I without you?”

Tubbo took a breath, eyes wide at him, and for a brief, _brief_ moment, he found himself standing at the top of a small smoking crater, a huge tower to the sky over what used to be called Logstedshire. He blinked once, and loosened Tommy’s grip on his arms, pulling away but taking his hands in his own. “Yourself?” He replied shakily. Without Tubbo, Tommy would still be Tommy. He was strong like that. Tubbo wasn't. He knew without Tommy, he fell apart. He knew ~~prayed~~ that Tommy wouldn't break over him gone.  


Tommy made a noise that sounded a mix of a sob and a disbelieving scoff, before he yanked his hands out of Tubbo’s and grabbed him by the shoulder, hugging him painfully tight. “You, you can’t… You’re really accepting this?” He whispered.

“Yeah, but it’s, it’s alright,” he wasn’t sure how he could make his voice sound so chipper when he felt like he was shattering to pieces. He could feel the tears roll down his face despite the soft smile he gave when he pulled a bit away from Tommy’s embrace. “It’s been fun. We’ve said our goodbyes, this morning.”

“Yeah, but that was, we were, we were optimistic!” Tommy retorted, wiping his face roughly with the back of his hand. “We were optimistic, this isn’t what we-”

“Well, yeah, but we’ve been backed into a corner,” Tubbo looked back at Dream, who had stopped a bit closer than before, the damned smiley face mocking them.

“He describes me as a pawn, yeah?” He reminded his best friend, and Tommy briefly turned to look at the masked man as well. “This is checkmate. This is it, this is the end.” He got Tommy’s attention and put a hand on his shoulder, smiling as the tears kept falling. “I suggest you resign.”

Tommy said nothing for a moment before he muttered, just loud enough that Tubbo could hear. “Tubbo? Even though, this entire time, we’ve been friends, and how I’d, we’d, I’d say you were my sidekick… Really, Tubbo, I was  _ your  _ sidekick.” _~~You're my hero.~~_  


Tubbo chuckled weakly, shaking his head, when his heart almost shattered again at the quiet plea. “So please don’t go.  _ Please  _ don’t go.”

“It’s fine. It’s fine,” Tubbo said, pulling away from Tommy completely as Dream raised his free hand to him. There was no more time. “It’s about time anyway.” _To follow the other former presidents,_ he left out. It had only been a matter of time, really. “It’s about time.”

“So you’ve said your goodbyes?” Dream questioned, grabbing Tubbo by his shoulder and pulling him in close like an angular fish with their food.

“Don- Dream stop-” Tommy stammered, yet he hadn’t moved from his spot. Tubbo couldn’t blame him, he was surprised his legs were still holding him up from how shaky he was.

Distantly, Tubbo heard the sound of the portal working, but before he could see what was happening, he felt a tight grip around his throat, almost lifting him off the ground.

A blinding flash of pain, then blackness.

* * *

Like tunnel vision, Tommy did not hear the world after Dream dropped Tubbo’s body. In fact, he was pretty sure he had gone deaf, he couldn’t hear a damned thing. His throat hurt suddenly, and he lunged as his best friend ragdolled onto the floor, his head whacking the bedrock that looked like it would have hurt if he could  _ feel  _ anything.

He grabbed Tubbo, blind to the unnatural tilt of his neck, blind to the lack of pulse, lack of breath. He cradled his best friend to his chest, in his lap, begging for whatever gods cared for this to not be real. It couldn’t be real. There was no way this was real.

Distantly, as if through water, Tommy heard voices. Dream. Punz, Puffy, Quackity, Sapnap. _When… When had they gotten, what?_

He looked up, his neck sore and aching, before he felt something graze against the side of his neck, and he was slammed back into the present, all his senses returning with a vengeance. His throat was ruined from his scream, his body shook - which shook the already cooling body he held so tightly - and his breath came short and fast, wet. Something sharp pressed against his neck, a point lightly digging into the side but not enough to draw blood. A threat to still him, a warning to the others.

And there were many others. Everyone and then some that had wished them luck at the start of their journey were in the vault, with varying expressions of horror, fury, or carefully blank. Eyes on him and Tubbo, eyes on the figure just above and behind him, eyes on the vault they found themselves in.

Sapnap stepped forward, ahead of Punz who led the group, raising his sword like a pointed finger. “Get away from them.”

The only answer to the order was Dream adjusting the axe, but it never pressed hard against Tommy’s neck. He wouldn’t kill him. He’d kill his best friend, but not him.

Something in Tommy snapped.

Without a care to his life, he grabbed the shaft of the axe and yanked it away from him, awkwardly sliding Tubbo’s body off of him as he stood up and over him, seeing the world in a red haze. He barely felt the nick of the blade, it would simply be added to the list of injuries sustained today.  _~~ At least this one would heal. ~~ _

“You won’t kill me,” he tried to speak properly but his throat was absolutely wrecked. He ignored it anyway. “You would have done so already if you wanted me dead, prick.”

He barely got the words out before hands grabbed at him from behind and he was pulled away from Dream, Sapnap and Punz taking the lead with their weapons pointed at the masked man. He looked away to see who was pulling him, to see Eret giving a thin-lipped smile, gently moving him behind them, murmuring something to him but all Tommy heard was their voice.

He saw Ranboo cradling Tubbo’s body, weaving through the crowd of adults to get to Tommy and Eret, keeping him away from Dream. Ranboo held the body tightly, his ears down flat against his skull and his thin tail lashed while he gave no other outward expression of what he was thinking.

“You fucked up  _ big  _ this time, Dream,” Quackity sounded downright murderous and Tommy turned his attention from his friends to the group of everyone who still cared about him and Tubbo that surrounded Dream, pushing him towards the hall of blackmail.

He pushed forward, only giving Eret a determined look when they tried to stop him. Eret searched his face before nodding, turning their attention to Ranboo and the body, keeping them all as far from Dream as possible, and Tommy walked forward.

“He lied to everyone,” he cried, pushing through how much it hurt to speak, like he had been swallowing sandpaper. “He admitted to blowing up the community house and framing me for it!”

He made his way forward, and the others let him through, though he noticed how Puffy raised a hand as if to protest, but he ignored everything. He had backup, he had so many people in full armour and heavy weapons on his side, he almost felt invincible.

~~ All that was missing was a single soul. ~~

Tommy marched up to Dream with bared teeth, a cross between a threatening smile and a snarl. “You won’t kill me. I know you’re not going to.”

As if to prove it, Tommy turned his back on Dream, looking to who had once been one of the masked man’s closest friends. “Hey Sapnap, pass me a pickaxe, would you?”

Sapnap gave him a brief look of confusion but obliged, handing a pickaxe to him handle-first, and Tommy bared his teeth in a smile before he returned his attention onto Dream. “You know what, you son of a bitch? You told me  _ everything. _ Even now, you’re not gonna kill me.” He was wearing no armour and only had a single netherite pickaxe on his person other than the clothes on his back, even as the masked man had fully enchanted armour and who-knew how many weapons and other tricks he had up his sleeves.

Like David versus Goliath, and Tommy knew how that story went. “Even after everything, you’re not going to kill me. You don’t have the _guts,”_ he snarled, whacking the ground between them to create a divot in the floor. Nothing big, it would take too long, but he wanted this, like a primal urge. “Put your armour in the hole. Everything,  _ everything _ you have, in there.”

The sentence sent a thrill down his spine, and almost to his surprise, Dream followed the order after only a single second of hesitation. Soon, a small pile filled the divot, and the moment the masked man only wore the clothes on his back, Tommy grabbed everything he could with more vengeful glee than necessary.

He quickly put on the armour in front of Dream. It wasn’t a good fit for him, a little loose in places but it would still do it’s proper job regardless, and he huffed a dark laugh as he saw everything he now held that had once been in the masked man’s hands.

Tommy held the axe that had threatened both his and Tubbo’s lives and smiled, the world still a red-tinted haze. “You fucked up for the last time,” he swore, dropping his voice.

“Tommy, you won’t kill me,” Dream said easily, and the world grew redder. “We have too much fun.”

“Dream. You have caused me  _ nothing _ but pain,” Tommy glanced back at the crowd, at the back of Ranboo who was not looking at all in their direction, at the feet the stuck out from his hybrid friend of the boy who had been Tommy’s best friend for ages. He adjusted his grip on the axe and stepped towards Dream. “And now? Now it’s your turn.”

He swung wide, almost overbalancing but with a rage he had never felt before, Tommy kept at it, not letting Dream have much room to run before he got a good strike in. A slice to the shoulder and he almost went down instantly, but he kept to his feet and slipped away, scattering the others as Tommy pursued him wildly.

“I’m going to kill you until you’re fucking dead, Dream,” Tommy promised. He promised to himself, to Tubbo, to everyone.

“Stop. Stop!” Dream had the audacity to start sounding worried, dodging the swings as best he could but not able to dodge them all. His hoodie was slowly getting shredded from the back and sides. Tommy couldn’t care. “Tommy, Tommy I can  _ bring people back to life!” _

It took a second for him to process the words that came out of Dream’s mouth and Tommy stumbled to a stop, his heart in his throat.  _ “Ay?!” _

“I can- J Schlatt gave me a book, okay?” Dream held a hand over the shoulder wound, and Tommy took pride in the fact his mask was almost completely broken. “I fought with him, and he gave me a book, and it has how to bring people back to life. But only  _ I _ have the book. I’m the only one who knows, Schlatt’s dead.”

“Wh-why should I believe you? All you do it  _ lie!” _ Tommy retorted, holding the axe until his knuckles went white, but a small part of him begged for it to be true.  _ Bring people back to life… Tubbo, Wilbur… _

“If I die, death will be permanent,” Dream urged, holding his arms out in surrender even as the shoulder wound weeped blood. “Look, you have to let me go or else the dead will stay dead.”

Tommy looked over to where Ranboo and Eret stood, and still the enderman hybrid held the body close to his chest, Eret standing guard, ready. Both of them looked just as shocked by the news as Tommy, watching the scene unfold from a safe distance.

“You can… Tubbo could come ba-” He stopped himself as he turned back to Dream. “Why should I believe you?”

“You wanted to know why I sided with Schlatt, didn’t you? Now you know. I worked with him to get the book, he gave it to me for agreeing to work with him,” Dream replied. “Tub-if I die, he’s gone forever. Wilbur too. Everyone, when they die, it’d be forever.”

Tommy took a step back, lowering the axe as he did and looked at the cracked and breaking mask, frustrated how he couldn’t see the actual face underneath. “Can you really bring people back?”

“Yes, I am the  _ only _ person who knows how. If you kill me now? No one will be able to come back. Ever.”

A hand on Tommy’s shoulder reminded him of the group that had come to save him  ~~ and Tubbo ~~ and he looked over to see Sam, his face partially hidden under a mask himself. “Tommy, we don’t have to let him go free, we just can't kill him either,” he said, looking at the masked man who was bleeding the most out of everyone in the vault. “We can just put him in the prison. I _built_ the prison.”

“You did?” For a moment Tommy imagined if Dream had had his win, and it was him as the prisoner.

“Yeah, but I knew about the construction,” Dream says, almost shakily. “I know how it works.”

“Even if you know how it works, you should already know it’s impossible to get out once you’re in,” Sam countered evenly, looking down at Tommy with a soft expression from what he could see. “We can keep him there until we need him to bring… Until we need him.”

Tommy nodded slowly, looking from Dream to Sam to the rest, before his eyes landed on the body of his best friend. As if the sight of him took the adrenaline away, he slumped his shoulders and leant back, finding himself being caught by Sapnap.

“I’ll take him to it now,” Sam said, and Tommy looked at him.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s take him to the prison,” he agreed, before he shook his head. “Wait, no, you go, with, with Sapnap. I…” Words fizzled from existence for a minute and another pair of arms wrapped around him, and he saw Puffy pull him close, offering support as his legs threatened to give out. “He did everything bad to us. Every unexplained problem, it was probably  _ him. _ He blew up the community house. He hurt all of us. For power. He stole from us, or was planning to steal, look down the hall, to blackmail us!”

The others turned to the hall of blackmail, Sam and Sapnap hanging back with Dream until the signs on the walls were spoken aloud.

“Beckerson?” Bad read out, his head turning towards Sapnap, who stiffened and looked between his once close friend and the hall. Tommy watched as Sam gave him a nod, held Dream’s arm a little tighter, and the other hurried forward to find the bucket containing his other precious pet.

There was murmuring, and a shout of bewilderment when they got to the Skeppy sign, but Tommy stopped paying attention. Puffy kept an arm around his shoulders and gently led him away from the hall, towards Ranboo and Eret.

“Maybe it’s best to go,” she said in a soft tone, glancing at the other two who nodded, Tommy a few seconds later. “We’ll leave everything up to the others.”

“I have your discs in my e-chest, Tommy,” Eret said, and Tommy realized the altars were bare then. “Do you want them now or…”

“I want to go home,” Tommy answered, and the other three living people with him nodded in agreement, and led him through the portal.

The entire way back, Tommy did not let go of Tubbo’s shirt sleeve. _He’d get him back,_ he promised himself silently. He’d do _anything_ to get him back.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I always look forward to hearing back from people, and if you don't know what to say, you can follow any of these feedback options, and I'll be sure to answer!  
> Feedback
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